Concern Over an Increasingly Seen Gesture Grows in France

By Scott Sayare

Jan. 2, 2014

PARIS — No one seems to know just what is meant by the “quenelle,” the vaguely menacing hand gesture invented and popularized by a French comedian widely criticized as anti-Semitic, but it is clearly nothing very nice, and it appears to be spreading.

Fans of the performer, Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, send him photos of themselves performing the gesture in front of historic monuments, next to unwitting public officials, at weddings, under water and in high school class photographs, but also, increasingly, beside synagogues, Holocaust memorials and street signs displaying the word “Jew.” At least one young man appears to have posed for a quenelle outside the grade school in Toulouse where, in 2012, four Jews were killed by a self-proclaimed operative of Al Qaeda.

Jewish leaders, antiracism groups and public officials have pointed out that the quenelle, which is also the name of a fish dumpling that is a regional French delicacy, strongly resembles a downward-facing Nazi salute. Mr. M’Bala M’Bala, who goes by Dieudonné, insists it is nothing more than an “antisystem” joke for his initiates, most of them young men, some from the disaffected immigrant suburbs, some from the xenophobic far right.

Still, when he seethes against “the system” on stage or in his popular Internet videos, Mr. M’Bala M’Bala generally points to a supposed cabal of Jewish “slave drivers,” secret rulers who cloak themselves in the memory of the Holocaust. The performer, the son of a black Cameroonian and a white Frenchwoman, often argues that Jews have unfairly claimed a monopoly on the status of “victim.”

In the fall, military leaders discovered that the quenelle was popular with soldiers — there are plenty of photos online to show it — and the army chief of staff banned the gesture after two uniformed infantrymen were sanctioned for performing one outside a Paris synagogue. This week, a top French soccer player, Nicolas Anelka, was widely criticized for performing a quenelle during a game; Mr. M’Bala M’Bala and his followers applauded.

Tony Parker, an N.B.A. star with the San Antonio Spurs, and a teammate, Boris Diaw, both of them French, have been criticized for making the gesture. Mr. Parker, noting that the photo of him making the salute was three years old, has issued an apology saying that he was unaware until recently of the “very negative concerns associated with it.”

Mr. Anelka, like other French sports figures and celebrities seen performing the quenelle, said the gesture was not anti-Semitic. But the authorities say that they have watched the spread of the quenelle with increasing alarm. Jewish groups have pressed the government to act, though just what can be done is not clear: The traditional Nazi salute, for instance, is not expressly banned here, and any effort to ban the quenelle would raise questions of free speech. Nor would banning the gesture be likely to do much to stanch the anti-Semitism that is apparently often behind it.

But state intervention in such matters is traditional here, with racist speech strongly restricted by law, and last week the interior minister, Manuel Valls, announced that he would try to ban the humorist from performing in France.

Mr. Valls’s decision followed the broadcast of a video in which Mr. M’Bala M’Bala laments that a prominent Jewish journalist did not die in “the gas chambers.” Under French law, those words will probably be deemed “incitement to racial hatred.” Jacques Verdier, the performer’s lawyer, said they could earn his client tens of thousands of euros in fines. It is far less clear, however, if there is a legal basis for an outright ban on his shows.

“Creative freedom is certainly important,” said Mr. Valls, speaking on RTL radio. “But in the case of Dieudonné, it’s about hate. And the responsibility of a minister is to say, ‘Stop, that’s enough.’ ‘That’s enough,’ precisely because he’s having success on the Internet and in his shows, and his audience members need to have a realization.”

Mr. Valls, a center-leaning Socialist, has received support from the traditional parties of both the left and the right, though notably not from the National Front, the party of the far right, which has opposed a ban, positioning itself as a defender of free speech.

Whatever the outcome, Mr. M’Bala M’Bala, whose online videos have been viewed by millions, now finds himself at the center of a national debate — one that he appears to relish.

“I have the sense that I’m just an intermediary, today, between the people and this little handful of slave-driving rulers,” he said in a recent video. “The quenelle movement is reaching the summit. We’re at the heart of everyone’s attention: TV, radio, press, ‘La quenelle! La quenelle!' ” he said with a chuckle.

He then argued that the French president is not in fact popularly elected, but rather chosen by the leader of the Crif, France’s most prominent Jewish organization.

Still, he said that he is not an anti-Semite. Through his manager, Mr. M’Bala M’Bala declined an interview request. According to his lawyer, Mr. Verdier, the quenelle is in fact an “antisystem, antiestablishment, antileft, antiright” symbol meant to provoke the indignation of the politically correct. Mr. Verdier said his client, who introduced the gesture in 2005, “disapproves” when it is used to promote anti-Semitism.

That claim is disingenuous, public officials argue. Behind Mr. M’Bala M’Bala’s “skillfully maintained ambiguity” is “the clearest and most distinct anti-Semitism,” said an Interior Ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with internal rules.

“He’s an expert in muddling the issues,” said Col. Bruno Louisfert, an army spokesman who investigated the use of the quenelle by soldiers last year.

Crif has asked that charges be brought against anyone seen performing a quenelle outside a Jewish site. The Justice Ministry has responded favorably, said Roger Cukierman, the president of Crif.

One unintended result of the government’s intervention has been plenty of free publicity for Mr. M’Bala M’Bala, who is scheduled to begin a stand-up tour this month. The government dismisses that concern, the official at the Interior Ministry said, because the performer is quite popular already.

But a ban may not be an ideal approach for the government, some commentators have said.

Banning Mr. M’Bala M’Bala “only allows him to play the victim of the ‘establishment’ to which he claims his ‘quenelle’ is a riposte,” Arthur Goldhammer, a close observer of French politics at Harvard’s Center for European Studies, wrote in a recent blog post.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Concern Over an Increasingly Seen Gesture Grows in France. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe